Our Blog

5 Tips on Great Audiobook Narration

Audiobook Narration

Audiobook Narration is one of the most important elements to a good audiobook no matter how creative the writing, how engaging the story, how imaginative the characters, if the audiobook is narrated poorly it makes for a disappointing listening experience. We have compiled five crucial requirements for narrating a great audiobook.

1. Voice Variation
We don’t need a fully-voiced audiobook, but I think some differentiation among character voices is essential, even if it’s just a slight change in pitch or tone.

2. Authentic Gender Voicing
It is an underrated but critical area of importance. The character must come across as believable for the story to build in the way that it was intended. Usually a slight change in pitch is enough and even if the character doesn’t sound completely male / female, at least he / she sounds like the gender he / she is meant to be.

3. Authentic Accents
An incorrect accent or badly voiced accent during audiobook narration can completely ruin an audiobook, particularly if it’s used on a regular basis throughout the story. Good accents draw listeners into the story, adding important dimensions to both characters and settings. MOST importantly it should sound right to the listener.

4. Smooth Editing
All the pieces of the audiobook narration should fall together smoothly. There shouldn’t be any irregular gaps in time between sentences or chapters, however, this is something that Litphonix helps you with by the way it is structured for the narrator. The audiobook should sound like the narrator recorded the whole story in one swoop, without pausing for a stop at any point. There shouldn’t be any static or strange background noise. An audiobook with poor editing will sometimes have sections that are louder than others, but again this is something that we at Litphonix have thought of and you can learn more by going to our tips page – http://www.litphonix.com/narrating/tips/

5. Narrator Enjoyment
Narrator enjoyment of the story leads to natural, unforced changes in pitch, pause, pace & punch and so on. However the difference it makes to the listening experience is incredible! It’s obvious to the audiobook listener when a narrator isn’t enjoying the story he’s telling as there’s no emotion behind his words and simply just no life in the story. Narrators who are caught up in the story will engage the audience tenfold.

So to us it really does not matter who you are, you just need a passion and an interest in reading!

If you’d like to find out more about us and what we offer, then please visit our website and read through what it means to be an audiobook narrator with Litphonix.